© Evan Habeeb | 2019 Sep 10
No, this is not a joke.
The Los Angeles City Council is expected to vote within the next week on a resolution that would urge Major League Baseball to award the Dodgers both the 2017 and 2018 World Series titles, the LA Times is reporting. The rationale is that because LA lost to two teams mired in the cheating scandal, the Astros and Red Sox, they should be given the trophy as the runners-up in those seasons. Both Astros manager A.J. Hinch and Red Sox manager (and former Astros bench coach) Alex Cora were fired by their clubs in recent days.
“This is an equity and justice thing,” Councilman Gil Cedillo, a sponsor of the resolution, said. “Who was the best team in 2017? Who was the best team in 2018? It was the Dodgers. They got beat by teams that were cheating.
“Do they need to be told that they shouldn’t have a title?”
Cedillo told the Times that neither the Dodgers nor their constituents had requested the resolution.
MLB fined the Astros $5 million and suspended Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow for a year, after ruling that the team had violated MLB rules for using video technology to steal signs. Cora was an Astros coach at the time and let go by the Red Sox on Wednesday. Cora could still be suspended by MLB, and the Red Sox may face further sanctions as the MLB is also investigating Boston for sign-stealing.
There is no precedent for a title being stripped and given to a runner-up in MLB history.
“You’re right. We don’t know,” Cedillo said. “But what do we know? You make your decisions on what you do know. We know that the Astros cheated, and they were advantaged by it.”
